Memorial Technology

New Memorial Technology to Plan a Funeral
and Better Remember Loved Ones

MemorialTechnology.com is an online resource center designed to help families, Funeral Directors, and Cemetery Directors to learn more today’s new and creative ways to help cope with grief and loss and, most importantly, help celebrate the special life and memories of a loved one.

This family-friendly online resource center was specifically designed for three main purposes:

1. Raise awareness about today’s most popular, newest, and most innovative technology tools, all of which can help remember loved ones in a more meaningful way.
2. Offer valuable information and education on exactly how these new memorial technology tools work.
3. Provide access to the most qualified and credible companies offering these funeral home services.

MemorialTechnology.com features six of the most commonly sought-after and utilized memorial technology options families are choosing to add to their funeral, memorial, burial, or cremation planning. These six options include:

Unfortunately after my family lost a dear loved one, we were not aware that any these excellent memorial technology tools existed. Therefore, we did not know how they worked, nor did we know who to turn to for help.

My sincere hope and prayer is this helps families make a difficult situation a little easier.

Vienna, VA – The beginning of a New Year is always special for those who have lost loved ones, as well as the funeral and cemetery industries. However, 2012 is going to be particularly special because families can now take advantage of some of today’s new and innovative memorial technology and memorial services options.

Christopher P. Hill, Founder of FuneralResources.com, recalls “When my family and I lost my mother on Thanksgiving Day, we never knew these new memorial options existed. I can assure you we would have used at least three of these memorial tools.”

Hill’s personal loss inspired him to create www.memorialtechnology.com, a new educational website which simply makes it easier for families and Funeral Directors to raise awareness, education, and access to these new ways to better heal and remember.

MemorialTechnology.com particularly helps the funeral and cemetery industry by offering Funeral and Cemetery Directors a quick and easy way to educate every family on excellent additions to their funeral and memorial services planning.

Top Six New Funeral and Memorial Technology Options

MemorialTechnology.com contains six options that studies show most families are choosing to add to their funeral, memorial, or cremation planning:

As we approach the New Year, Hill stated; “You will see that MemorialTechnology.com provides a true win-win situation. For the Funeral and Cemetery Directors, they can now offer even more valuable services. For the families, the can learn and maybe take advantage of ways to enhance and improved a loved one’s life tribute. I hope my mother is proud to know she inspired such a wonderful opportunity.”

FuneralResources.com is the funeral industry’s leading online Resource Center for both families and Funeral Directors. This comprehensive website offers easy access to help regarding how to plan a funeral, memorial services, and end of life plan services.

Custom Funeral Music

The Powerful Combination of Custom Crafted Funeral Music, Pictures, and Professional Video

Creating a Healing Thanksgiving Family Keepsake

With the rapid growth in the Internet and new funeral technology, families today have access to many new and innovative tools that can help significantly increase their funeral and memorial planning experience. At the top of this list are DVD Video Tributes, which most families are choosing as a common addition to their loved ones memorial service.

In addition, I am happy tell everyone there is also the ability to work with a professional singer/songwriter/producer who can help families create “custom crafted” funeral music, which is a song that is personalized for either a special loved one and/or a special event.

Listen to this Beautiful Custom Crafted Song:

“Since my family never knew this powerful funeral technology existed, I strongly encourage every family to learn more about this option as a great addition to a Memorial Service. These professionally designed Video Tributes allow you to combine the personalized music, photos, and message of your choice. Watching this together with loved ones, this provides a great opportunity for everyone to celebrate, remember, and heal…and ultimately becomes a treasured family heirloom to keep forever.”
Christopher P. Hill, Founder, FuneralResources.com

Consider Using Custom Crafted Songs to Help Heal and Remember

If you are interested in selecting funeral songs with meaningful lyrics it may be easy to use the internet to search and read lyrics of popular songs. However, I believe a much better and more personal solution is to opt for a more customized music selection and have a song written and recorded to play at the funeral service or memorial service.

This DVD Video Tribute below contains a customized song that was created for me by Anna Huckabee of Custom Crafted Songs. By taking advantage of creating a custom crafted song, this helped me to express how I truly felt about my mother, but in a very special and meaningful way.

By combining these personalized lyrics that Anna helped me create with a DVD Video Tribute, this helped me in so many ways. First, it helped me to better see what a wonderful and amazing person she really was. Second, since Anna needed to ask many questions to know as much as possible about her, this helped me to express my thoughts and discuss some things that significantly helped in my healing process. But most importantly, this custom crafted song allowed me to express some feelings and emotions that I was not able to say to her before she passed. These words are things that I regret every day not telling her before she was taken above.

My mother passed on Thanksgiving Day of 2008, which clearly means that Thanksgiving will never be the same. But since everyone who knew her would tell you she was one of the most giving people on the planet, I truly thank Anna for creating this personal song and tribute for my mother, and fittingly calling this beautiful song “Thanks For Giving“.

Thanks for your giving ways too Anna!

Top 5 Reasons Video Tributes are Common Memorial Options

1. A QualityMemorial Tribute

Each custom DVD Video Tribute is hand-crafted by professional technicians who artfully tell your loved one’s story. With expert direction, the funeral music and imagery join together in perfect harmony to create a healing experience as individual as your loved one’s life. This memorial tribute will be a treasured family heirloom for generations to come.

3. Create a Fitting Video Memorial

From majestic mountains and oceans to the simplicity and beauty of a single rose, a Funeral Video DVD utilizes custom thematic scenery, filmed in stunning High Definition by world-renown videographers, designed to personalize and illustrate your loved ones life.

4. Healing and Uplifting Funeral Music

A professionally crafted DVD Video Tribute utilizes therapeutic, customized soundtracks. This personalized funeral music is specifically composed, arranged and/or produced to heal a broken heart as well as provide the perfect accompaniment to your family photos.

5. A Memorial as Individual As Your Loved One

These Video Tributes are professionally produced tributes which celebrate your loved ones life in magnificent cinematic quality, and are available in standard or wide-screen format.

Memorial Technology

Today, many new and innovative memorial technology tools that are widely-recognized in the funeral industry as common services that help make a difficult situation a little easier. New memorial technology is helping families and friends who have lost a one heal, remember, and celebrate. Below are the most common new memorial technology tools that most families are choosing:

A Memorial Website is a personalized website that is created to celebrate a person’s life. Friends and family can grieve and celebrate the memories of a loved one by sharing stories, kind thoughts, condolences, photos, and videos online. These online memorial tributes can be kept online for life so that friends and family can view the wonderful memories year after year and additional content can be added at any time.

In its simplest definition, a Video Tribute is a professionally crafted video production which consists of digital images, video, and/or photos of your loved one, which are then combined and played simultaneously with the music or your choice. They can serve as an excellent presentation to complement your special funeral memorial service, and are a great way to help in the grief and healing process. A Video Tribute helps tell the story of your loved ones life, and also creates a family heirloom that can be treasured and kept for years to come.

Created from a lock of hair or small amount of cremated ashes, memorial diamonds are an unique, heirloom memorial that will forever contain the essence of your loved one. These genuine, certified diamonds are created in a laboratory using your loved ones personal carbon and a diamond seed. By mimicking the earth’s natural high pressure, high temperatures necessary to create a diamond, in 70 days or less a personal diamond will emerge in one of the five brilliant colors you have selected. These memorial diamonds can be a stunning reminder of a loved ones life and unique spirit. Set into a beautiful piece of cremation jewelry, a memorial diamond can be worn close to the heart in a pendant, or into a memorial ring, bracelet or even earrings.

Due to advances in microchip technology, your family can now include detailed text and a photo within a headstone to create a high tech, high end memorial. RFID-enabled data tags are an addition to a loved one’s tomb stone – you can enter the person’s name and choose some representative symbols, perhaps a small epitaph via the web – then you embed the tag into a larger traditional tombstone.

This new technology will allow future generations, visitors and historians to access both a story and genealogical information about the deceased from an internet enabled cell phone while at the markers physical location.

For a wide variety of reasons, family members and friends are often unable to travel or attend the actual funeral service of a loved one. Using this innovative memorial technology, families and loved ones can now view the actual LIVE Memorial Service from the comfort of their own home, or whatever location is most convenient. Funeral Webcasting can be viewed on a private and secure website page by using password protection. This ensures that ONLY the people you wish to join in this Memorial Service can participate LIVE.

A memorial reef is an environmentally-friendly burial option that is being used to replace the more traditional green burials and cremation ideas, such as cremation urns or ash scattering. The process includes mixing a loved ones remains into an environmentally safe concrete mixture and create a personalized memorial reef. These memorial reefs are then placed into the ocean. This combination of new memorial technology, cremation, memorial reefs, and green burials can now offer families to provide their loved ones with a living legacy at sea.

Plan a Funeral

How a Funeral Director Can Help

You Plan a Funeral

After losing a close loved one back in 2008, I am constantly trying to find ways I can help both families and Funeral Directors find new ways to make the funeral planning process easier. After working closely and researching extensively, I have learned a lot about how to plan a funeral and end of life planning industries.

However, since I am not a licensed Funeral Director, I have also focused on learning how challenging and meaningful of a role a Funeral Directors can play in a families life, and therefore, I have gained a tremendous amount of well-deserved respect and appreciation for a Funeral Director’s selfless contribution to this valued public service.

So given the importance and sensitivity of this matter, I am not only constantly trying to learn more each day, but also searching for any possible new and innovative ways to help add value to this industry.

When I look back on my personal experience, below are some of the key things I truly believe would have helped my family as we worked through the many funeral planning challenges:

1. I believe it would be helpful if the Funeral Director could give a brief history about their Funeral Home, Cemetery, as well as their personal background and experience.

This would help families learn more about choosing a funeral home or cemetery, funeral director, and feel more comfortable about the qualifications, experience, and credibility of who they are dealing with.

2. I think it could be helpful if a Funeral Directors would ask if anyone involved has any history or experience with planning a funeral.

This would help the Funeral Director and the family, since this lets the Funeral Director know if they need to begin slowly, starting with the basics, or whether things could be a little easier and streamlined based on any past experience.

3. Before the Funeral Director begins to review the basic outline of the funeral planning process, it would be helpful if they ask the family if they have any important questions on their mind that they feel like they need to find answers.

This allows the family members to ask about things that might be of concern, time-sensitive, or important to know regardless of the planning process.

4. The Funeral Director could explain the general outline of what the funeral planning process involves and what they will review and work on together. Ideally, this overall outline would be great to have in writing, so they can see it, read it, plan ahead, and follow along step-by-step.

This helps the families to get an idea of what to expect, and also begin thinking about the many funeral planning challenges.

5. The Funeral Director could tell the family members to feel free to interrupt him/her at any time, and ask any questions that come to mind, no matter how basic or uncomfortable they might feel.

This helps families feel like it is OK to ask questions, since from my personal experience, I was very reluctant to ask things that I now wish I had.

6. After the funeral planning process, the Funeral Director could find a way to help families learn about some of the new and popular memorial technology tools, resources, services, and funeral home services. In fact, I would even recommend offering families a printed list of these options so you can talk about them with the families, or simply let them research these things on their own to find out more.

Why not let every family know about all of these options? If families don’t choose to add these to their funeral or memorial planning, they are still better off from knowing these options were available. And if families do find these options to helpful tools that can allow them to better heal, remember, and pay a special tribute to a loved one, everyone wins!

7. Last, I would suggest Funeral Directors consider providing every family with helpful details, such as these below, at the end of their funeral planning discussion:

– Key things to consider when planning a memorial service
– Several phone numbers to contact for any questions or concerns, 24/7
– Grief support information, grief books, and local grief support
– Information on how to give a eulogy, funeral etiquette, how to write an obituary, and other common families needs
– Contact information on Charitable Organizations, and ways to help families donate funds “in lieu of funeral flowers”
– Key reasons and benefits to consider an End of Life Plan, and where they can go to learn more
– Names and contact information for people who you recommend that would be willing to help offer free advice for any financial planning matters, such as funeral estate planning, tax planning, wealth management, etc.

Again, these are just some thoughts I had after looking back on my personal experience, as well as some of the details I have found that most families are searching for – and today this is being done largely on the Internet.

I truly hope this helps both families and Funeral Directors, as I continue my quest to make this difficult process easier!

Funeral Webcasting

Attending a Funeral LIVE…

Or On-Demand

Which is Best? Can You Use Both?

Today Funeral Homes and families can now take advantage of new memorial technology tools. One of these new tools, Funeral Webcasting, offers families the ability to “attend a funeral” and watch a loved one’s Memorial Services on the Internet, the number of families who are searching for, and choosing, this Internet webcast option are growing rapidly.

Differences Between LIVE and On-Demand

LIVE funeral webcasting connects families all over the world, at the time of the funeral service, and is the next-best thing to being there. It brings comfort to the family members who are unable to attend the funeral in person.

On-Demand funeral webcasting is viewed after the funeral service, and usually the actual video footage is made available within hours after the funeral services has ended. Therefore, since they are already in a form of a “stored version”, they can be watched at any later date and as many times as the family member or loved one would like.

Most Funeral Homes Are Choosing On-Demand Webcasts

It is important to point out that, whether a family chooses a LIVE or On-Demand webcast, both are available On-Demand for up to 90 days. However, what we have found in the large majority of our experience in working with Funeral Homes is they are choosing to only broadcast this video footage of the service using On-Demand.

The main reason why most Funeral Directors are choosing On-Demand versus LIVE Webcasts is because it is just plain easier and more efficient for everyone involved. When faced with this educated decision, just about every Funeral Director would not prefer to deal with things like setting up a computer, ensuring connection to the Internet, making sure the camera is working properly, ensuring the camera is pointed optimally for viewing, worrying about the need for Wi-Fi or an air card in remote locations, power outages, dealing with family member who cannot get determine how to get this to play. So if you really think about it, by choosing to use On-Demand, the only requirements are setting up the camera, pushing the “record” button, walking away, and coming back to end this after the service.

So it should be easy to understand based on what was mentioned above, given all of the LIVE broadcast possible challenges, the extensive work involved, as well as the increased probability that there can be many complications, we are seeing many more Funeral Directors choose On-Demand webcasts versus LIVE.

Focus on Offering This Service – Not the Type of Service

Although we simply wanted to point out the fact that we do see a growing trend here, the key thing to note here is that some of our Funeral Homes are more than willing to utilize this LIVE technology service anyway. We also currently have many funeral homes working with us today who absolutely love to broadcast their services LIVE, and have been providing us with some wonderful feedback from their families and their practice.

Whether a Funeral Director chooses either LIVE and On-Demand funeral webcasting, what we have concluded over the years is that each Funeral Home and family is usually unique, and each have a different set of needs. Therefore, our job is not just to aggressively promote the service, but rather promoting and facilitating the “right” kind of webcast technology for each individual situation.

Whether you choose LIVE or On-Demand Funeral Webcasting (or both) is purely a personal choice, and I strongly encourage each Funeral Director to look review all of the advantages and disadvantages with a funeral webcasting professional before making any decisions.

Last, but certainly not least, it is my strong opinion that if there are still any Funeral Directors today who have not yet embraced this popular funeral planning tool as a part of their practice, it is my strong belief that they will soon be saying something like: “I cannot afford NOT offering this helpful technology as a routine service that every family can take advantage of”. The good news is, both the Funeral Directors and the families benefit from having this option.

End of Life Plan Steps

5 Easy Steps Create an End of Life Plan

The Greatest Gift Your Family Will Always Remember

Live As If There’s No Tomorrow

The truth is nobody likes to talk about death or dying. However, the unfortunate reality is that all of us will be forced to deal with this difficult situation at some point, and often times it happens when we least expect it.

Another harsh reality is that the large majority of financial professionals and families overlook or ignore the importance of incorporating a smart end of life plan as a part of a comprehensive financial plan.

I firmly believe that nobody would ever want their family and loved ones to have to deal with any unnecessary emotional and financial decisions (or costly expenses), during what could arguably be the worst times of their life. However, yet another harsh reality is that over 70% of people who die fail to leave their family and loved ones as much as a basic Will, also called a Last Will and Testament.

Use These 5 Easy Steps:

I’ve put together 5 easy steps that should help every family improve their financial plan, simply by adding these key pieces of a smart end of life plan:

• A budget for the funeral costs that will be involved
• Your preference on a burial or cremation
• The location of your burial, or where you wish your ashes scattered
• Decide if you want a large memorial service or a small one
• Pre-arrange the caskets or cremation urns you like
• Choose officiates and others you want to run or speak at your service
• Pick the funeral music and Video Tribute you wish to have played
• What you would want engraved on your tombstone

3. Create a “love drawer”, which is a central location where you keep all your end of life plans mentioned above. Choose someone to tell, and update it every two years.

• Consider funeral webcasting on the Internet, so everyone possible can “attend”
• Build your own personal DVD Video Tribute, complete with songs and pictures
• Create and design a memorial website, who loved ones can share together online

Benefits to You and Your Family

By taking these steps now and creating your end of life plan in advance, you are sending your family a very strong message – which says that you cared enough to make this difficult time a little easier. Not only with they thank you, but they will remember this selfless gift of love forever!

Funeral Webcasting

Many People Cannot Attend a Funeral But… Now They Can View it LIVE on the Internet

Since there are many valid reasons people cannot attend a funeral, such as health, finances, age, work, or timing, there is new memorial technology that exists today called Funeral Webcasting. This is one of the many new funeral home services that is capable of broadcasting any funeral service LIVE on the Internet. That’s right, LIVE! All you need is to be somewhere that has an Internet connection, and you can now share in this special moment in real time.

But wait, there’s more…

It gets even better, because if you cannot attend the funeral in person, nor can you watch it LIVE on the Internet, the video footage of the memorial service can be stored for up to 90 days. What a wonderful option this has become for so many people, especially given today’s economy and the financial challenges many people are facing. Over the last few years Funeral Webcasting has been quickly gaining popularity among funeral homes and is now to the point where family members are beginning to request these types of services. So this is making this an extremely important for Funeral Directors to not only embrace these new memorial technology tools, but also proactively promote them to those who are unaware these amazing new tools are readily available.

Key Benefits of Using Funeral Webcasting:

• Gives families and funeral directors a wider range of options which leads to a better overall funeral plan experience • Helps families appreciate the funeral director more, knowing he or she is keeping up with such innovative and helpful technology • Helps the families to join together in a much larger way for this special event • Gives families the ability to offer this privately, to only those who they wish to invite, by using a password-protected website • Families also have the ability to open up these memorial services for their loved ones to anyone who may wish to pay their respects by choosing not to elect a password • Allows families to include those you know really want to attend, but simply can’t make for whatever reason • Offers family members in other countries, from all around the world, to join in their loved ones celebration of life • Provide everyone the option to view this video again, or for the first time, after the memorial service for up to 90 days Given the many funeral planning challenges many families face today, funeral webcasting is just one of the technologies being used to BOTH help improve the families funeral planning experience, as well as strengthen their relationships with their funeral directors. For more detailed information about this new tool – and many of the other cutting edge memorial technology tools available today, you can simply CLICK HERE

Video Tributes

Five Reasons A Funeral Video Tribute is an

Excellent Memorial Keepsake

1. A Quality Memorial Tribute

Each custom Video Tribute is hand-crafted by professional technicians who artfully tell your loved one’s story. With expert direction, the funeral music and imagery join together in perfect harmony to create a healing experience as individual as your loved one’s life. This memorial tribute will be a treasured family heirloom for generations to come.

3. Create a Fitting Video Memorial

From majestic mountains and oceans to the simplicity and beauty of a single rose, a Video Tribute utilizes custom thematic scenery, filmed in stunning High Definition by world renowned videographers, designed to personalize and illustrate your loved ones life.

4. Healing and Uplifting Music

A professionally crafted Video Tribute utilizes therapeutic, custom soundtracks. This special music is specifically composed, arranged and/or produced to heal a broken heart as well as provide the perfect accompaniment to your family photos.

5. A Memorial as Individual As Your Loved One

These Funeral DVD Videos are professionally produced tributes which, celebrate your loved ones life in magnificent cinematic quality and are available in standard or wide screen format.

You can learn more about these Video Tribute Memorials as a helpful addition when funeral planning on our website by clicking on the following link: Video Tribute